2022 was that YEAR!!! 😄

From starting off with grad school interviews in January, to receiving my first grad school acceptance in February, to receiving three more offers in March, to accepting an offer in April, to getting my visa in May, to spending time with family and friends in June, to saying goodbyes in July, to moving across continents to start grad school in August, to having my first exam in grad school in September, to officially joining a lab in October, to celebrating my first birthday outside Nigeria in November, to writing my first finals and acing all my fall 2022 courses in December....2022 was definitely that YEAR!!!

I have gone through the entire spectrum of feelings in 2022. I have had a lot of moments of joy and great happiness, and I have had several sad moments sprinkled with a huge amount of imposter syndrome moments as well. I will not say that I am over it though, one moment I feel like the baddass that I am and then the next moment, I feel like a fraud that would be exposed very soon.... ha-ha....it is very funny now as I type this thought 😂

I started this year with uncertainty. All my eggs were in one basket... I was going to graduate school. 

I was wrapping up my one-year national youth service called NYSC (this is a mandatory program for Nigerian graduates, where you have to work for the country for one year before you can be deemed employable). So, I was about to finish this program as the year began, and this was the time to start looking for a long-term job as any sensible Nigerian fresh graduate about to complete NYSC would. But I wasn't doing that, I was preparing for my graduate school interviews even though I had not received any invite yet.... I remained optimistic. I was going through this process for the second time as I had submitted applications for fall 2021 but couldn't secure a fully funded offer. “The second time is the charm” ....so they say right? It indeed was the charm, as I was able to secure 4 fully funded offers this time around; 3 PhD offers in the United States and 1 Masters offer in Europe (ERASMUS). 

Then the confusion began 😄 on what offer to accept. Glad I made the right decision for me! I joined one of the top programs in my field, and....I love it for me.

Doing a Ph.D. is a very challenging journey by itself; now add cultural shocks and adjustments, extreme weather conditions, loneliness, and IMPOSTER SYNDROME... again!! It's been hard, I'm not even going to lie, and I only just started, but I've been DOING IT, you know, taking one step at a time while trying not to be too hard on myself. I have a terrible attitude of working so hard for something and then when it happens, I just move on to the next thing like nothing happened. I hope to change in 2023....scratch that, I hope to change starting NOW. I hope to become more intentional about celebrating both my small and my huge wins. 😀

You know the best thing about this year, it is the fact that I have grown....so much. Well, growth, as they say, is constant. I hope you take the time to embrace all your small and huge wins as we wrap up this year. 

 

Cheers,

The Pharm Scientist 💜

P.S. I hope to write more on this blog moving forward, what would you like to read about? Let me know by dropping a comment or by sending me an email. I hope we become best of friends soon. xoxo